Court upholds medical exam for edgy cop

Share this:

If your employers think there’s something wrong with you, they don’t usually have the power to make you take a medical exam. But it’s different if you’re a cop.

That was the word Tuesday from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld a police department’s order in Washington state requiring an officer to take a series of exams after his behavior raised questions about his fitness for duty.

Oscar Brownfield joined the Yakima police force in 1999 and suffered head injuries in a car crash a year later. He returned to work in 2001 and had no problems for the next few years. But in 2005, after filing a series of complaints against his police partner, Brownfield swore at a superior officer, told him to leave the room and got suspended, the court said.

After he was reinstated, the court said, Brownfield got into an argument with another officer, then lost control and started shaking when a child taunted him during a traffic stop. His estranged wife said he slammed a door that hit her, which he denied, and a fellow officer quoted him in another incident as making comments such as, “It doesn’t matter how this ends.”

The department put him on leave in late 2005 and ordered him to take a medical exam, which found that he was suffering from a mood disorder possibly related to his head injuries. Another doctor reported about a year later that Brownfield was making progress and should be able to return to work, but he refused to take a follow-up exam and was fired.

Brownfield’s suit claimed that the police department violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, which limits an employer’s authority to order medical tests to find out whether an employee is disabled.

The employer first has to show that the exam is a “business necessity,” which means that it’s essential for the operations of the workplace. That’s a high standard, but the court said an employer can respond to signs of trouble and doesn’t have to wait until health problems start affecting someone’s job performance.

Particularly in a stressful and dangerous job such as police work, the court said, an employer can order an exam if there’s a good reason to doubt the employee’s fitness for duty. And in this case, the court said, Brownfield’s “repeated volatile responses” met that test.